my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
by IssyEmm
Summary: "She laughs out loud at the last one, and wonders if that was how Ann had first introduced her as a potential date – 'yeah, she's partial to drunken karaoke but she's hilarious'. But he's not laughing, and the air feels thick as he continues, reaching his hand out and caressing the skin of her inner wrist." AU Ben/Leslie *Formatting issues resolved, apologies*


"Urm, calzones are pretty good, I'd have for go for a good ah-cal-zonah." The weird, kinda-endearing, kinda-cringey Italian flourish he adopts in the latter half of his sentence makes her smirk and want to roll her eyes, and even without seeing him she can tell his cheeks are burning.

"Seriously though, favourite food?" she asks again, wiping the slate clean and starting again. She can almost hear his bemusement, can imagine the pinched smile on his cheeks falling as his mouth forms a small _o_ of surprise.

"Calzones," he says, like she's asked him to stab his mother to save her prize guinea fowl, "They're really…neat."

"They're just pizza that's harder to eat," she says dismissively, and she instantly hears the slight intake of breath that informs her she's about to get an earful from the probably-beautiful man sitting across the table from her.

"I don't think we have enough time for me to explain to you how wrong you are," he says dramatically, and she senses the way his body leans halfway across the table towards her, can feel the weight of his shadow upon her, his elbows edging closer to her. In the past she had found it difficult to tell when people were joking – still had that issue, especially with her mother (but that was a story for another lifetime when she could force the words out) – but it had gotten simpler. For instance, half an hour ago his voice had been a mix of embarrassment and politically incorrect stuttering as he tried to apologise for starting with _It's good to see you_ , but now it is buoyant and alive and she knows he's grinning.

"Calzones are God's gift to the world," he insists, and she snorts, an ugly replacement for the feminine giggle she had never perfected. He seems encouraged, and continues, "They're the new incarnation of Jesus. They can literally cleanse the world of all evil." She hears the scrape of a fork against a plate and suddenly smells rich tomato and basil in front of her.

"You cannot tell me that doesn't look good," he declares, and fifteen years ago, that would have made her weep, but now she laughs again and responds, "I sure can," just as he realises his mistake, and floundering, regretful apologies echo around her dining room.

"You still haven't convinced me," she teases as the conversation halters. The table dividing them is four hands wide, but she swears she can hear the uneven _thump, thump, thump_ of his heart. _He should probably eat less sugar_ , she contemplates internally, _sounds like he's got high cholesterol with an irregular rhythm like that_. Or maybe he's just feeling a little flustered. Probably the latter.

He clears his throat awkwardly, but when he talks there's that smile back and she's half in love with it already. "Calzones are better than Joe Biden. Calzones are _sexier_ than Joe Biden," he declares, evidently proud of himself, and she sits aghast.

"How dare you?" she demands breathily, and it's his turn to laugh whilst she tries to maintain a straight face. "You come into _my_ house, and insult Joe Biden under _my_ roof?"

She says it partly because it's true – _don't worry Joe, when the date's over I'll kick his ass for you_ – but partly because she heard his nervous laughter earlier and it has already become one of her Top Ten Favourite Sounds. Also featuring on the list was the Gettysburg Address as read by Sam Waterston, the song Build Me Up Buttercup (she still had her signed poster of the Foundations though it really was an empty gesture), and the sound of the thunderstorms in July every year that sent her twelve bird boxes flying across the lawn. But his laughter was steadily climbing the rungs of the ladder.

She thinks he's probably very handsome. In a dopey way, judging by his extensive knowledge of the Star Wars universe and his odd devotion to specific styles of Italian pastry, but she's sure Ann wouldn't let her go out with anyone too weird. Apart from that one guy that still had an ankle-tag after being released from jail having chased a racoon through the park with a machete during half-term week, but dear, sweet Ann hadn't known about that until Leslie mentioned she was having trouble with the local wildlife in her back garden during dinner. He had camped out there for 3 days with a shotgun until she had called the police. He still turned up the next week for a second date. And then there was the guy who only ever ate kidney beans…

But she's sure this one is different. He's forgotten that she can't see a damn thing twice and it's quite refreshing given most people can never really stop talking about it. He's already told her he loves Al Green and his job – state auditing which he makes sound more appealing than Premiership – and that his go-to book is always _First Lady of the World_ which is his biggest selling-point right now, and she's hoping, against all the odds that she knows exists for her situation, that this one might actually go to plan. That he might want to stick around.

"Well maybe that's pushing it," he concedes, his voice heavy with humour and she realises her cheeks actually ache from her persistent smile, "But calzones are definitely better than regular pizzas." She lets him have it, because they've been talking about pizza for ten minutes now and she's never had such an easy, unstilted conversation before and she has a million other things she wants to ask him.

"Favourite movie?"

"The Box."

"Favourite musician?"

"I don't know really, probably Letters to Cleo, they have some great stuff."

"Dream job?"

"Same as you, as far as I can tell. Setting up shop in a nice, rounded office in a big white house in Washington."

"Favourite colour?"

"Red. Like your dress. It's very bold."

She's almost forgotten what red looks like. She dreams in colour but she doesn't know which ones they are anymore, and she knows their names but the labels won't attach. She dreams of her mother's face that had since aged two decades into one she probably wouldn't recognise, and she dreams of her father's face, one that would never change past the last time she saw it. She doesn't imagine she will ever see this guy's face – not unless these opticians get real inventive real fast – but it doesn't bother her like it has with other people in the past.

"Tell me about the colour red, describe it to me," she says quietly, aware that her fingers are lacing through the table cloth and gripping it tightly, like she's trying to grab hold of water that's slipping through her hands.

He falters and stutters, and says nothing for a few moments, but then manages to hack out an awkward cough and says "Red is the smell of a forest in the middle of September when the leaves are falling off and crackling when you stomp over them and even though it's getting a bit colder, you can still feel the sun on your face."

He pauses again, and she's taken aback. She waits for him to continue, wanting to bask in the unexpected depth to his words. He obliges her, and suddenly the words that had dripped like a leaking faucet come crashing out like a tidal wave along the coast. "Red is being sat in front of a fire, hands outstretched, the sound of wood spitting out sparks and hissing coal. Red is cinnamon and berries at Christmas, hiding inside from the snow as it tumbles down and ruins the back garden and your favourite potted plants. Red is singing Danger Zone in your living room with a glass of wine with your best friend on a Friday night."

She laughs out loud at the last one, and wonders if that was how Ann had first introduced her as a potential date – _yeah, she's partial to drunken karaoke but she's hilarious_. But he's not laughing, and the air feels thick as he continues, reaching his hand out and caressing the skin of her inner wrist, his gentle fingertips brushing against the faint outline and raise of blue veins and red arteries. She tries not to shiver at the touch and fails.

"I think red is your father crying when he finds out his mother has cancer. Red is the tingling you get in your fingertips when you press them against someone else's lips. Red is…red is the quiver of someone else's lips next to your ear. Red is the feel of someone's heart against yours."

And suddenly he's told her more about himself than he has ever revealed to another living person. He tries to pull his hand away when he finished, more humiliated now than at any other point in the evening, but her honed instincts cause her to hold onto his hand, and squeeze it within her own. "You should have been a poet," she tells him, her voice hoarse, not wanting to sound mocking but not wanting to push him any further. She can feel herself practically drowning in the vividness of his descriptions, can feel a surge of heat towards her stomach, and for the briefest moment remembers what it's like to see in colour, or to see at all. It's the most she's gotten in several years, and she clutches onto his hand because no one has done that for her before. God knows the doctors tried memory techniques and associations, and God knows the opticians tried every surgery they knew how to perform, but he had had more success than anyone of the experts. There's a faint jealousy, almost a dull sense of resentment towards him because if this is the way he sees the world, then it must be the most enchanting thing in the world. But she feels privileged that he chose to loan her his sight, to share his vision, even for the briefest time.

"Sorry, I got a bit carried away," he says, and he's shrugging and he's uncomfortable, naively unaware of his gift, and he wants to leave. So she brings his hand up and gently kisses the back of his palm, and then lets it fall back onto the table.

"It's fine, it was nice," she replies, almost stammering. "Got any other party tricks?" She hopes it doesn't offend him, and she's relieved when his posture changes and his demeanour along with it.

"I can turn a jug of water upside down without any spilling out," he proposes and she cackles because when she was eight she went around her parents' twentieth anniversary party and made fifty dollars doing the same piece.

They don't bury what has just happened, but the effortless, First-Date conversation returns as they make their way through pudding and then a glass of wine – he hums Danger Zone under his breath as she pours and she playfully slaps in him in the arm – and then finally a late night coffee.

"I should probably get going," he announces, and she feels the clock on her mantelpiece which tells her it's gone half eleven at night. If she hadn't known he lived only a few blocks away, she would've insisted on his staying, but she nods her head and walks him to the front door. He steps out and turns back around to say goodnight, but all she hears from him is a small _harrumph_ and an exhale.

"What's got you down, clown?" she says, and immediately hangs her head in shame whilst he smiles back at her.

"I just…you're beautiful. You know that, right? I know you can't physically…sorry, that didn't come out right at all, sorry, but you have to know, don't you?" he says with a strange tone of desperation and awe, as if he was watching the sun go down for the last time. She can feel his eyes boring into her and she has the good grace to blush whilst he fails to drag his eyes away from her.

"Everything about you…" he murmurs, "Even your eyes, like thunderstorms in July…"

 _Oh._

She takes a step onto her porch and leans in, sensing his shallow breaths, feeling the reverberations through the air until they're pressing squarely against her mouth, and she kisses him. He's shocked for the first few seconds, and then his arm wraps itself around her waist and there's a hand in her hair, his thumb tracing the curve of her jaw and the hollow dips of her neck, wavering across her collarbone. She feels day-old stubble underneath her fingers and remembers the colour red as she whispers, "Good night Ben," in his ear and lets him go.

"Good night Leslie," he replies as she closes her front door behind her, and he stumbles out into the night, blind to everything in the world except her.


End file.
